Friday, February 3, 2012

We've now got complete results from preliminary rounds at the International Racquetball Tour (IRT) MonaVie Salt Lake City Pro-Am in Salt Lake City, Utah. Two of the players to make the Round of 16 are Alvaro Beltran and Ruben Gonzalez, but both needed tie-breakers to get past their Round of 32 opponents.

Beltran was ahead during his match against Andrew Gale, winning the first game 11-3, but Gale came back and squeaked out game two 12-10. The pattern repeated itself in games three and four, as Beltran won comfortably, 11-3, in the third and Gale took the fourth 11-9. The pattern held tn the fifth, as Beltran won 11-1. He'll face Charlie Pratt in the 16s on Friday.

Gonzalez had a different path to the 16s, as he lost the first game of his match versus Cole Burr, 11-5. Gonzaleez could have gone down two games as he faced a game point at 11-10, despite having led 10-5. But the legend pulled out the second game, 13-11, to even the match.

In game three, Gonzalez was ahead the whole way, although Burr did make it close before losing 11-8. One might have thought Burr would roll over at that point, but instead he took a 10-2 lead in game four en route to a 11-5 win.

Game five was similar to game two, as Gaonzalez led early at 3-1, 5-2 and then 10-5. However, Burr again dug deep, and came back to tie the game at 10-10. But the effort might have taken too much out of Burr as Gonzalez got the serve back and hit two cut drive aces to the right side that were just out of Burr's reach, giving Gonzalez the game, 12-10, and the match.

The IRT Network will be web-casting the MonaVie Salt Lake Pro-Am Round of 16 beginning at 11:30 AM MST on Friday. Remember, the semi-finals and final will both be played on Saturday. The semi-finals will go at 11 AM MST and noon MST with the final slated for 7 PM MST.